


Moving Forward

by orphan_account



Series: VLD RarePair Week 2019 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Sex, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), References to Depression, Romantic Fluff, Sad Shiro (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron)-centric, VLD RarePair Week 2019, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 02:02:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20770700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Called away on business again. Shiro was starting to worry if he’d ever get married at this rate. Planning a wedding was wonderful, but doing it away from Curtis only made Shiro worry about a repeat of what happened with Adam. If he’s away so much, is Curtis still going to want to marry him? Or in moving forward with Curtis is he actually just retracing the past?





	Moving Forward

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually the first Voltron fic I ever wrote, it got more emotional than I wanted it to.  
For: VLD RarePair Week 2019 - Day 3: Distance

It's time to leave again. Meeting seventeen-hundred-and-boring this month alone. And Shiro can't wait to run away from it, but he's only just arrived at the plane to get there. He can still feel Curtis' fingers grazing his neck and the kiss on his forehead from their goodbyes that morning. And he holds on to that feeling, lest it slips away from his sensory memory too soon.

Wedding planning had been going nicely. Not amazingly — he was away too much for that — but still well, Curtis had roped him into having matching suits... oh, the humanity. But the guilt that pushed him to agree to that (although he didn't regret it) still ate at him; he felt he was lumping the whole responsibility of the wedding planning on Curtis, which wasn't fair. Curtis was picking flower options for centrepieces one minute, then unable to answer the phone the next in order to discuss organisation with the venue, and on their most recent call with Shiro away, Curtis had to let him go after a mere few minutes because he still had so much to do. It wasn't Shiro's fault he was away so much, not in the slightest. But it seemed the only person who knew that was Curtis.

As he settled into his first-class seat (at least the Garrison afforded him some convenient luxuries in the absence of Curtis) he recalled their lazy morning; hazy breaths and warm hands, slow movements and soft touches, racing hearts in sync with each other. He remembered how much he knew he was going to miss Curtis' way of making bacon — that was _ not _ good for his cholesterol — that morning as he sat at the kitchen counter watching his love work around the stove in nothing but the cheesy _ I'll Feed All You Fuckers _cooking apron Lance gave Shiro for Christmas. And if that beautiful bacon had been neglected to cool a little too much in their distraction, then he didn't care.

*

_ Curtis - 11:49: _ Heya darling, just wanted to wish you a little extra luck, and a little less boredom, on your trip. See you in 3 days, I'll be there when you land. Love you baby x

_ Curtis - 11:51: _ Oh btw I can still feel this morning in my legs you ass! I've been walking round the ven since 10! D:< xx

*

Shiro doesn't even remember the first half of the meeting while he's getting his late lunch — or perhaps early dinner — in town. He's just happy this meeting took him to Japan. He could complain that the Garrison has affiliates _ so far away_, but it's his home. And they needed him for that reason precisely... and the other usual reasons of course. He had high status in the Garrison now, along with his fantastic diplomacy skills, let's not forget he's a Paladin— blah blah blah. The perfect man for the job. Every. Singe. _ Time_.

Curtis would probably punch him for deciding on _ vending machine ramen-in-a-can _for a 3:30 pm lunch. But it meant no busy restaurants and no expenses past ¥1,000 — and with how soon he had to be back for the second half of this meeting, it truly felt like the best option.

*

_ Curtis - 16:09: _If I got time zones right it's 5? Hope your meeting went well baby, get somethin good to eat, how bout that gyoza you love? We picked the lillies for the centerpieces like you wanted lol, Ronnie INSISTED you were right. Love you xx

*

The ceiling sure is fascinating. This hotel room is... something. Shiro could have kept trying to make up things like that to distract himself for hours. But what he was really thinking about always crept back up.

He's away too much.

He's away so much. He knows it'll stop once he's married — the dates just so happened to coincide — but he doesn't think that's soon enough. He should have just left the Garrison when they gave him that first opening to do so. Putting his job before his love one last time. He's away too much.

Shiro has basically had to drop all wedding planning duties on Curtis, and though Curtis was adamant that he's thrilled to be doing so much, he does also have a job. He does also have a life. And Shiro feels like he's taking the latter away from him by asking him to stay by his side. _ This feels all too familiar. _

*

_ Curtis - 17:43: _Haha that boring huh? Well we got a few bands narrowed down, Keith's insistence on his selection is kinda terrifying, need ya back asap to put a stop to him! x

_ Curtis - 17:44: _ Lol, he's here longer than we thought tho, you'll get to see him when you get back, I know how much ya miss each other. Oh! And Ronnie sends her love x

*

It's not going to be like last time, is it?

Shiro closes his eyes and old flashes of dusty brown hair dance behind his eyelids. A disappointed look softened by a deep longing behind misted glasses. Pain. Loss. Shiro missed him. He still loved him — he always would. And now he was moving on, finally finding a healthy solution. But that didn't mean he didn't still miss Adam.

Shiro suddenly frowned. What if that's all this was? What if his melancholic longing for what he lost is all this is about? So that he can do the same again. Because that's what it is starting to feel like. Like one day, Curtis will turn to him, and ask what matters most to Shiro.

*

"_Hey, baby._" The static did nothing to stop the warm blanket of Curtis' voice for Shiro, as if he'd ever be stopped by a few thousand miles. He could practically feel the rougher timbre of sleep in his chest, and it relaxed him before he could even reply, his eyes closing again on the foreign hotel bed he laid upon.

He hadn't been able to get some sleep yet, so he did what he had always done since he'd started living with Curtis — he talked to him.

"Hey— _ shit_, did I wake you?" Shiro forgot to even think about time zones before hitting the call button, but it was about midnight where he was, so he could only hope.

"_No, no! I should have been up an hour ago anyway, I've been awake for like... ten minutes? So perfect timing I guess, haha,_" Curtis answered, the sleep in his voice starting to dissipate a little more with each new syllable. Shiro could hear a slight rustling in the background like Curtis was getting out of bed or something. "_What's the time there, anyway? Can't be early, right?_" he asked, a note of confusion seeming to lace his voice with a higher pitch.

"'Bout midnight," Shiro answered honestly. "I couldn't sleep — I missed you."

Curtis chuckled, the most beautiful sound in the world, even over the phone. "_Aw, I miss you too, baby. Come on; talk to me, what's on your mind?_"

Any other time and Shiro would have said it's nothing, any other time and he would have reinforced that he was just missing his fiancé. But this time he had thought of Adam so clearly. This time, he had realised what that vague, painful worry lurking in the back of his mind was actually about. And that scared him. And what was the one thing Curtis had managed to drill into him since they had started dating? Communication. Keith had taken it upon himself to pull Curtis aside once, and to tell him that Shiro 'bottled things up' instead of talking about them. Curtis made Shiro promise.

"Actually... I, uh—" he stumbled over syllables, what did he want to say?! "Curtis. I— I lo—" Why was he suddenly choking on it? _ Just get it out! _ "I love you, Curtis. You— I... I want to marry you." Well, _ that _ was articulate.

Another chuckle, but more startled and confused this time. "_'Kashi, I— we're _ getting _ married. Are you okay? You sound..._" He didn't finish. But a deep breath on the end of the line seemed to stop the moisture in Shiro's eyes from multiplying. This time, when Curtis spoke, his voice was softer, worried— no; _ scared_, "_Takashi, are you okay?_"

"Do you _ want _ to marry me?"

And all of a sudden, it was like Curtis _ knew_. His voice turned firm, and it almost seemed like he was right there in the room when he spoke, "_Takashi. I want to marry you. I am _ going _ to marry you. Now, you tell me, baby, what has brought this on? And don't you dare lie to me._"

"I—" Now was the time. "I was thinking..." He needed to just _ get it out_. "I was thinking about Adam."

"_Okay...?_" Curtis trailed off, back to softness. "_Okay. What about Adam, 'Kashi?_"

And suddenly it all seemed so easy, like a dam had broken. "How I fucked it all up! We were where we are now, Curtis! And I— I put stuff like this — like _ work _— first! And I pushed him away! I—" And with that dam came the saltwater. "I fucked it all up." The saltwater carved its path into his hairline, behind his jaw, across the curve of his ear.

"_That was different. That is not now. That is not the _ same_, Takashi. Listen to me_—"

And listen, Shiro did.

*

His carry-on luggage felt light in his hand now. Everything did. Because he was moving on. And this time, he meant it. He'd spent all night — and all of Curtis' morning — two days ago telling the story, _ Adam's _ story. And Curtis had spent it listening respectfully, not once biting about how Shiro still missed him, not once cutting him off to save himself the longing flood of Shiro's memories, the memories he'd never told Curtis — of how it felt to sleep alone for the first time after Adam, of how it had felt to watch him cry silently as he helped Shiro pack things. Of how much he thought about him. Curtis listened... and cried with him.

And when Shiro had finished, Curtis had told him it was okay. Curtis had told him how much he loved him, and how much he was sorry about Adam. And Curtis let Shiro end the call to sleep with the knowledge that this time... this time, it wasn't going to end that way. It wasn't going to end at all. Not if he had any say in it.

So as the plane door opened and he walked down the adjoining terminal, he stood tall — as he always did — but this time, he went without tension, and without looking back.

And walking out of the gate, to the small, dispersed crowd that awaited its loved ones, he easily spotted that smile. And, what felt like before he could even blink, suddenly he was back in Curtis' arms, burying his face into his collar and gripping him firmly — firmly, and happily.

Curtis pulled back from him only far enough to pick up Shiro's face in his hands ever so gently, and that smile was still there. They needed no help guiding themselves to each other, here, in the middle of an airport, Shiro felt only love in the press of Curtis' lips against his.

They drew back in sync ever so slowly, barely far enough to look into each other's eyes without hindrance, and even though he had already asked — twice now? — and even though they were already planning it, and it wasn't for a few months; it just felt right in that moment.

"Let's get married."

And the smile on Curtis' face was the clearest confirmation he had ever received.

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: I fixed the gaps that appeared around the italics, as well as some general errors I didn't catch before.


End file.
